If I’d known, as a teenager, that Lake Superior State University existed, maybe I’d have bothered getting a degree after all.

For one thing, these guys usher in spring by burning a giant snowman. (It was “a Snow Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iran hostage crisis”). When the school’s Environmental Awareness Club tried to halt the “toxic” tradition in 1992, that didn’t go well.

LSSU also issues “Unicorn Hunting Licenses.” (“Only one Unicorn per month. A success ratio higher than this often results in a form of euphoria, which of course requires a mental truss. This is highly undesirable….”)

And none of their degree programs have the word “queer” in their names. The weirdest-sounding B.A. they offer is in “Fish Health.”

“Come on: We all know leftists are actually stupid and dangerous. ”

Speaking of words, though, Lake Superior State U’s biggest claim to fame is their year-end List of Banned Words, now in its fifth decade:

“Overused words and phrases are ‘problematic’ for thousands of Queen’s English ‘stakeholders,’” said an LSSU spokesperson while “vaping” an e-cigarette during a “presser.” “Once something is banished, there’s no ‘walking it back;’ that’s our ‘secret sauce,’ and there’s no ‘price point’ for that.”

This year’s list, based on hundreds of nominations, just came out, and (along with the words pointedly employed in that whimsical press release, above) it includes “conversation” (Gayle from Cedarville, Mich., wonders if “‘debate’ has become too harsh for our delicate sensibilities”); “manspreading” (“A word that is familiar to those in bigger cities”), and the phrases “Walk it back” and “Break the internet.”

As we wind up a year for the ages and enter the Era of Trump, I’ve compiled a list of our own:

Dumb stuff we right-wingers can and should finally stop saying.

For instance, even if President Trump can’t do so (in public), the rest of us need to cease and desist from pretending to agree that “Of course, bullying/global warming/discrimination/pretty much everything is unacceptable.” No more accepting the other side’s dubious premises.

I’m really sick of “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” too. Isn’t it more accurate to say that minorities frequently disappoint the high (or even modest) hopes that the well-meaning left (and right) entertains on their behalf? (See: “Obama, Barack.”)

No, not all cops are heroes, and frankly, a lot of them don’t deserve my respect, Mr. Trump.

But there’s one expression that’s been in heavy rotation of late, for obvious reasons, and this one especially has got to go:

People on the right think that most people on the left are wrong; people on the left think that most people on the right are evil.

Yeah, no.

I, for one, think most people on the left are evil, not just the useful idiots, well-intentioned twats, and downright dupes the polite right always wants to provide cover for, for whatever weird reason.